Regina Vain (Earth-02)
Regina Vain '('Born: 'February 01, 1400), the Evil Queen of the Silver Realm, is actually Snow White's and Rose Red's paternal aunt. After her husband's death, she became the sole ruler of his kingdom and "adopted" Snow White when she was still a child. Jealous of her niece's beauty, she tried to assassinate Snow White twice, ultimately failing both times. Blinded by vengeance, Regina usurped the Empire and this ultimately led to its collapse. History Early Life Regina was the daughter of Prince Heinrich, the fifth son of King Heidrich of Stroh, and a miller's daughter named Cora. Bitter over King Wilhelm of Tamir abandoning her to wed Lady Elicia, Cora sought to seize their kingdom by placing her own daughter on the throne. Cora was then tutored in the mystic arts by her then-lover Rumpelstiltskin, who taught her to spin straw into gold. In order to secure economic sovereignty for his impoverished kingdom, King Heidrich arranged the marriage of his youngest son, Heinrich, to Cora. Unwilling to abandoned her plans for revenge and power, Cora magically removed her heart, rendering her emotionless, and assisted the Boxing League in imprisoning Rumpelstiltskin. Cora needed a daughter to further her ends, as King Wilhelm and Queen Elicia already produced a son, named Prince Wednell, and used magic to ensure she birthed a daughter. However, using magic to affect her conception yielded unforeseen consequences: she instead gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, whom she christened Rex and Regina respectfully. When Cora's plans to seize the Kingdom of Tamir through sorcerous means came about, Cora plotted to kill Heinrich, which she did secretly, caching him unaware and using an untraceable poison. Cora took control over her husband's estate, where she delegated young Rex's rearing to servants, while she personally tutored Regina. With her husband's death, Cora revealed herself as a witch to her children, using magic whenever it served her to solicit respect and obedience from them, but still kept her mystical abilities a secret from the community. Blessed with the natural looks of a goddess, but cursed with an inability to recognize it, Regina was emotionally unstable and entirely too critical of her appearance; consequently, she suffered bouts of body dysmorphic disorder and became mildly eisoptrophobic during her adolescence. Her vanity and insecurities was only fueled by her mother's ruthless criticism. Unhappy and unpopular, Regina was also bullied by her fellow aristocrats, who saw Regina as inferior because her mother was once a poor commoner. Though Regina found some comfort in tending to her estate's apple orchard with Rex, she was still consumed by envy and resentment towards more elite noblewoman. Taking an interest in witchcraft, Regina asked her mother to teach her magic in the hopes of improving her appearance and taking revenge on her bullies. However, despite being born with an aptitude for wielding magical energy, Cora felt Regina would use such power to rebel and refused to let her cultivate it. Growing to resent her mother for denying her the power and respect magic might bring her, Regina fantasized about becoming a regal sorceress, craving power and revenge on her tormentors. 1416 — 1417 As Cora molded Regina into a graceful and proper young lady, she also infiltrated Tamir's royal castle under a glamour. Disguised as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elicia, Cora slowly poisoned Elicia and Wilhelm over the course of several months until they died in their sleep. Unfortunately, soon after they died, their son married Princess Eva of the neighboring kingdom, putting a damper on Cora's plans. 1418 On the eve of Regina and Rex's 18th birthday, a quicksilver mirror was repaired by the dwarf Coalheart, for the Snow Queen Lumi, and left in a pond to temper, where it was found by Rex. Rex gifted the mirror to his sister as a birthday present and he, wanting to improve his sister's self-esteem, told Regina to see herself as he saw her: as the fairest in all the land. In time, Regina discovered the mystical properties of the mirror, and saw it as her means to gaining power and began studying its uses. Using the magic mirror, Regina located and secretly apprenticed herself to Lauda, one of the most powerful sorceresses in all the Homeland dimension. Lauda saw an opportunity to acquire the debt of an influential noblewoman and thus agreed to tutor Regina in the basics of witchcraft. Narcissistic and headstrong, Regina had no interest in mastering sorcery apart from learning certain skills to aid her in her amatory pursuits. While using magic to increase her natural beauty's already formidable allure, the magic mirror built Regina’s self-worth by confirming her to be the fairest in the land; however, this also swelled her vanity. Her world became her reflection, and she developed an irrational obsession with remaining the fairest of them all. In August, Cora manipulated events so that King Wendell of Tamir would be forced to stay at her estate for several days and she instructed Regina to win the favor of the widowed king. Despite her charms, she repeatedly failed to seduce Wendell, whose heart was still with that of his dead wife's and who devoted himself to the upkeep of his kingdom rather than romantic pursuits. Desperate to become queen of the wealthiest kingdom in the region, Regina petitioned Lauda for a love potion, which, if Wendell drank it, would cause him to fall madly in love with the first woman he saw. Using her beauty and wiles, Regina got Wendell to drink the golden mead she had prepared using the love potion. Under the mead's spell, Wendell fell uncontrollably in love with Regina and he made her his queen. Power hungry and tired of her mother's constant interference in her life, Regina figured her mother planned to simply use her as a figurehead to rule Tamir herself and rebelled against Cora. After being given a distance mirror by Lauda, Regina, with Red's unwitting aid, used magic to banish Cora to Wonderland on her wedding day. After becoming queen, Regina brought no possessions to the castle except for her magic mirrors. Every day she would consult her magic looking-glass, asking it who the fairest in the land was, and always the looking-glass replied that she was and this would satisfy her for she knew that mirrors spoke the truth. 1423 Hearing rumors of a monstrous wolf scouring the lands, Regina saw an opportunity to seize the kingdom for herself and convinced her husband to join several other kingdoms in fighting this beast. Failing to kill the Gaffer Wolf, King Wendell died in this righteous war in a faraway land and Regina used the opportunity to tax the people heavily in order to buy all sorts of potions and lotions that would maintain her great beauty. She also terrorized the realm, expanding her kingdom and establishing four other castles; her tyrannical nature earned her the nickname the Evil Queen. 1425 At some point prior to 1425, Regina experimented with black magic to gain eternal life. She succeeded in finding such a spell to grant her eternal life, and discerned the ingredients needed for the spell which included the heart of someone she loved. The following day, Regina secretly killed her brother Rex as he was returning home to his wife and newborn babes after gathering supplies at the nearest village, and used his heart to cast her spell. Binding her spell to the mystical Mirror of Mycha, she granted herself eternal life, and made it to where she can never grow old or ugly - so long as she drains the life force of others to replenish her youth and beauty. To prevent Lauda from discovering her involvement in Rex's death, Regina manipulated Lauda into believing the terrible monsters of the Black Forest had mauled him to death. Lauda quickly killed those who she thought were her husband's murders and then relocated to another part of the Enchanted Forest to raise her newborn twin daughters. After killing her brother, what was left of Regina's goodness compelled her to grow an apple tree at the heart of her castle garden in honor of him since their childhood home overlooked an apple field they enjoyed playing in. Using magic, this tree blossomed and grew unnaturally lovely and fertile. 1432 About seven years later, Lauda, fearing for her daughter's safety, arranged for Snow White to live with Regina. While Regina was reluctant to shelter her niece, she was convinced to do so by Lauda, who reminded her sister-in-law that it was she who helped her to achieve her high status. In exchange, Regina conditioned all debts paid. Largely apathetic to her niece, Regina had the entire kingdom convinced that Snow White was the late Eastern King and Queen's pathetic shut-in daughter who was incapable of leaving the castle, mainly to not repel any potential young male lovers. 1439 One day, when Regina asked her mirror who the fairest in the land was, it said Snow White was now lovelier than her, and it was true, for Snow White had grown in both years and beauty. Regina was enraged at this usurpation and began plotting a way to kill Snow White in a manner that would have none suspecting her involvement. Regina called for her huntsman to drag Snow White away, into the deep, dark forest where many terrible deeds can be concealed. As proof of her niece's demise or as a prize of sorts, she ordered her huntsman to return with Snow White's heart in a box. The huntsman, after Regina threatened to execute him, thereby dooming his wife and child to certain death without the means to survive, needed no further persuasion to agree to Regina's scheme. Snow White pled for her life, and in time the huntsman's heart was moved. Sparing Snow White, the huntsman substituted the heart of a pig to present to Regina and she was none the wiser. To prevent anyone from growing suspicious, Regina lied to all that her huntsman lost Snow in the forest as she picked flowers; for Lauda In particular, Regina implied Snow ran away to be with her natural family. 1440 In time, Regina's mirrors revealed to her the truth about her adopted daughter's survival and she killed the huntsman for his betrayal. Cloaking herself in the guise of an old woman, she visited the seven dwarfs' cottage and sold Snow White laces for a corset; but laces them too tightly, to asphyxiate her. When that failed, she took advantage of her niece's desperation and fragile mental state and returned as the same old woman, tricking Snow into using a poisoned comb. Finally when the comb failed to kill her, she visited again as the old woman and gave Snow a poisoned apple. Snow ate the poisoned apple and fell into a deep coma. Her captors on finding her so assumed the worst and dumped her body onto the edge of the forest, and had she been left there she would surely have died, food for scavengers. But Prince Charming found her first and his love was enough to overcome Regina's poison since all nobles of his lands had some degree of magic in them. 1441 After Snow White and the Prince revealed her true nature, Regina was invited to their wedding, where she was forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance until she died. However, Regina's spell of immortality kept her alive while all presumed her dead. She crawled out into the snow, dragging her raw blistered useless feet into a swamp nearby. Regina managed to reacquire her magic mirrors and plotted her revenge. Too weak to carry it out, Lauda discovered that Regina still lived and, instead of killing her, sentenced Regina to live out the rest of her days in a doorless and windowless tower, spelled to keep Regina imprisoned within. Over the next five centuries, the spell that granted Regina eternal life prevented her from dying of old age. But as she could not consume other's life force, her body deteriorated. Eventually, she became so wizened as to be senseless and immobile. Her youthful appearance and consciousness now only existed in her mirror as an illusion and nothing more. Personality Regina was a complex person born with a haughty attitude and a lust for power. Despite her arrogant attitude, Regina was highly insecure regarding her physical appearance, unable to recognize her own beauty, and this made her very vain in trying to enhance it. To compensate for her insecurities, she always acted very arrogant and ego-driven, striving to prove her superiority over others, Snow White above all, whose inherent magical talents and beauty she was highly jealous of. After being told she was the "fairest of them all," her vanity swelled and she became extremely selfish. For the first time in her life, she was able to control others with the power at her command, to manipulate men with her beauty and raw sexuality. Regina's relationship with her brother was complicated, but she did care about him, after a fashion. She seemed to suffer from bipolar tendencies and anger-management issues, along with other mental and emotional instabilities. Physical Appearance Regina was initially a very beautiful woman, with pale skin, brown eyes, and raven colored hair that is long enough to reach her waist. Due to magic, her body is relatively immaculate and perfectly proportioned. When she hasn't fed upon other's life force, her young, gorgeous exterior becomes old and haggardly. Binding her life to the Black Mirror also made Regina's body glass-like, and she would crack or shatter from physical trauma. Her internal organs were similarly glass-like, and she could not bleed. Powers and Abilities *'Immortality: *'Accelerated Healing:' *'Enhanced Physical Capabilities:' *'Pyrokinesis:' **'Kiss of Death:' *'Telepathy:' **'Mind Control:' **'Memory Manipulation:' **'Psychic Pain Infliction:' **'Psychic Illusions:' *'Voice Manipulation:' *'Claws:' *'Aquatic Respiration:' *'Witchcraft:' Weaknesses *'Hunger:' *'Magic:' *'Mirror of Mycha:' Weaknesses Category:Earth-02